WOODHULL TWP. - Rich Kobe was headed out for a bike ride just before noon on July 5, hoping to hop onto the Lansing River Trail.

He was taking a break from his duties as chair of Michigan State University’s Department of Forestry. His midday jaunt, however, soon turned to horror.

Now he’s raising questions about how seriously police treat bicycle crashes. East Lansing police say they are taking a second look at his case.

As he rode west out of campus on Kalamazoo Street on an old mountain bike, the traffic light at Harrison Road turned green. A cyclist at the light in front of him went through the intersection as a white Audi SUV in the oncoming lane yielded. The SUV driver was waiting to turn north on Harrison.

But as Kobe pedaled through the green light behind the other cyclist the SUV began to turn left in front of him.

“It cut right in my path,” Kobe recalled. “It didn’t wait for me. It tried to thread the needle between the two bicyclists.”

Though Kobe, an experienced cyclist, swerved to avoid slamming into the rear of the SUV as it turned, he cleared the back of the vehicle only to hit a curb. He was catapulted over the handlebars.

He landed on the right side of his face and was knocked out. Thankfully, he was wearing a helmet.

A passerby called an ambulance. Kobe woke up lying on his back and realized he couldn’t move his arms or legs. He had a seizure and passed out again. The next thing he knew he was in the emergency room at Sparrow Hospital. He spent five days in the hospital, including three days in intensive care.

Spine injury

The dangerous fall bruised his spine, caused a concussion, herniated a disc, caused several lacerations and broke his front tooth.

He’s recovering, and movement is returning to his limbs though he does have ongoing nerve pain. He may have to have surgery on his spine.

The driver didn’t stop at the scene of the incident.

Kobe doesn’t know if the driver looked back after the close call, but he’s certain the driver saw him at the intersection while cutting the corner too sharp, putting the SUV into the southbound lane of Harrison rather than the proper northbound lane.

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A sign pleading for information on a July 5 near collision is shown at the Harrison Road and Kalamazoo Street intersection July 23, 2018.(Photo: Judy Putnam/Lansing State Journal)

Kobe and his wife, Renee Leone, hoped East Lansing police would try to find the driver. Kobe knows it was a white Audi Q5 or Q model, with a black front grill. He got a look at the driver.

“I could have been killed,” he said.

Leone credits East Lansing police for quick action in finding her. She was at home when police used Kobe's bicycle registration number to track her down. Kobe didn’t have identification on him.

She rushed to the Sparrow Hospital emergency room and was shocked by the extent of his injuries.

'Lucky to be alive'

“It was clear to me he was lucky to be alive. He was pretty beat up,” she recalled.

In the two weeks following the incident, she said she repeatedly called and emailed police, nine times by her count, and described the response as lacking.

Leone, co-founder of the MSU Science Festival, suggested checking video cameras in the area and searching for white Audi SUVs. But the police officer’s urgency didn’t match hers.

“East Lansing police have invested virtually no effort in identifying the vehicle. I had to contact them personally and request they even take a statement from my husband. I was told he should email them a statement – even though he had no use of his arms or hands at the time!" Leone wrote to me on July 17.

East Lansing Police Lt. Chad Connelly said he reviewed the case after I called on Tuesday. He said he found the officer handled the case “fairly well.”

“There’s not a lot of substantial leads to work on other than a vague description of the car,” he said.

And even if the car and driver were identified, he said because there was no collision it would be treated as a civil matter – a traffic ticket. An independent witness or a partial license plate number would help.

Kobe’s family posted signs at the intersection asking for any witnesses to come forward. The passerby who helped Kobe just saw him flying over the handlebars, not swerving to avoid a collision.

Connelly said this week he’s asked for more investigation since I contacted him, and MSU Police Captain Jim Dunlap inquired about the incident after Kobe called him through a colleague.

Police are asking other law enforcement agencies if a vehicle matching that description is known to them or if their own databases can identify such a vehicle, such as vehicles registered to park on campus.

He said he also reported back to the family that East Lansing police did ask MSU to check surveillance cameras and the incident wasn’t recorded on any of them. No other cameras are in the area, he said.

Avoiding crash ironic

John Lindenmayer, executive director of the League of Michigan Bicyclists, said cyclist safety is an ongoing struggle. His group offers training to law enforcement agencies about Michigan laws affecting cyclists. He said Kobe’s case is especially troubling because Kobe was able to avoid a collision.

“The ironic thing is if he would have hit the vehicle and the driver left ….there would be higher consequences,” he said.

And such crashes aren’t recorded in a state database that could be used to make policy to improve cycling safety. For example, in June, Gov. Rick Snyder signed a bill into law requiring drivers to give three feet of space when passing cyclists on the left. (Five feet is better, cyclists argue.)

Kobe said he feels lucky to be alive. He is recovering at his Woodhull Township home near Perry. He is weaning himself from a neck brace and is hoping for a full recovery.

He said he will move on with his life but wants to make sure his experience gets more public awareness than a routine police report stuck in a file.

“I feel a responsibility and obligation to at least learn more about what happened, and I think that would benefit all bicyclists by doing so,” he said.

Kobe said he feels better now that police are being more active in the case. If you know anything about the near collision, email Kobe and his family at: bikeaccidentJuly5@gmail.com.

Judy Putnam is a columnist with the Lansing State Journal. Contact her at (517) 267-1304 or at jputnam@lsj.com. Follow her on twitter @judyputnam.